


Fade and Then Return

by paintedrecs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 12 Days of Sterek, Alternate Universe - Human, Canonical Character Death, Christmas, College Student Stiles, Derek Hale Feels, Derek Has Issues, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Holidays, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Minor Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura, Minor Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes, POV Derek, POV Stiles, Star Wars References, Warning: Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Holy shit,</em> Stiles texted Scott, fumbling to get the words out before he had to actually interact with the driver. <em>The battery guy is literally the most attractive person I’ve ever seen. Or imagined. It’s possible I’m dreaming.</em></p><p>***</p><p>When Stiles reluctantly called for emergency roadside assistance to help with his beloved Jeep's dead battery, the last thing he expected was to form a connection with the Hot Battery Dude, who showed up in fluorescent yellow pants with heartbreaking news for his wallet and a surprising connection to his past.</p><p>It was only logical, then, for Stiles to invite him home for Christmas...right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade and Then Return

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by true events: by which I mean I had a terrible morning recently that started out much like Stiles's, but most assuredly did NOT end with Derek Hale. Sadly.
> 
> Many thanks to GracyGoodbye and halesrepublic, whose suggestions and support improved the final version of this fic.
> 
> If I've missed any tags, please do let me know! Explanations for a couple can be found in the end notes, if you're concerned.

Consciousness didn't come easily to Stiles that morning. He drifted to the surface of a muddled dream haze, slapping at his phone and sending it skittering across the floor, the Imperial March trumpeting away, insisting he climb out of bed to silence it.

“No,” he told it, his voice muffled by a valiant attempt to smash his face back into his pillow.

The alarm’s last notes faded away in a clash of cymbals, as if listening to him, and he sank gratefully into his mattress, letting his sleep-heavy limbs relax, muscle by muscle, until…the alarm started up again, louder this time, vibrating into the carpet.

He cursed and wiggled and did his best to bury himself under his blankets, but he woke himself up, more or less, in the process. He sat up and blearily scrubbed his hands through his hair, trying to remember what class he was supposed to be getting ready for.

“It's Sunday, you fucking asshole,” his roommate swore from the other side of the room, tossing a pillow in his general direction.

Right. No classes, then. “Sorry,” he rasped, pouring himself out of bed and scrabbling for his phone. It was cold outside of the tangle of blankets he normally cocooned himself in at night, but he stayed on the floor for a few minutes, scrolling through his message alerts and working up the energy to move. He’d start with a hot shower, long enough to wash away the lingering shreds of exhaustion, scrounge up some breakfast after that, and - he racked his brain. There was something else he’d meant to do today. There had to be; otherwise, why would he have bothered to set his alarm?

“Shit!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and exchanging his ratty t-shirt and pajama pants for the jeans and hoodie he’d been wearing the day before. He grabbed for a pair of socks he probably hadn’t worn _too_ many times yet, shoved his feet into his shoes, and dashed out the door. “Sorry,” he said again, as the door slammed behind him, but his roommate would forgive him. Probably. They only had to last another semester, assuming he didn’t come back to an empty room after the holidays, with a transfer that had been finagled in his absence; they would definitely not be repeating the experience the next year and would only engage in awkward ex-roommate head nods when passing each other around campus. It was unfortunate to not form a friendship with the person you’d been forced to share your living arrangements with, but Stiles freely admitted he wasn’t the easiest guy to get to know. People either loved him or couldn’t stand him; there wasn’t a lot of in between, and he didn’t particularly care to carve out the space for such a compromise.

He hurried down the stairs, his keys jangling in his hand, and patted his Jeep fondly on the hood when he reached the parking lot. It was an automatic gesture built from years spent with his baby - he talked to Roscoe more than he talked to his roommate - but a mistake, after a night of unexpectedly heavy rain. He grimaced, wiped his hand on his jeans, and slid onto the creaky seat, turning the key in the ignition.

The engine emitted a horrible sputtering gurgle, and he released the key. Maybe it was sluggish from the cold air, the first burst of significantly wet weather in months, and the fact that he’d been too busy with finals to drive anywhere in the last couple of weeks. He tried again.

“Sorry Roscoe, it’s okay, baby,” he consoled the Jeep, letting go before he flooded the engine. The sound was worse this time, clicking and grinding, a death rattle that signaled he wasn’t going anywhere in the immediate future. He tapped his fingers along the steering wheel and tried to think through his options.

On a Sunday, at this hour of the morning, most of the people in his building would be sleeping off Saturday night. He could wake up Evan to ask if he could pull his car around and try giving the Jeep a jump, but he suspected that’d put him in serious danger of being smothered with a pillow. Besides, there was no guarantee that’d work; he knew he’d been stretching the battery life thin, making it last as long as possible before shelling out for a replacement, and there were only so many times you could jump a vehicle before admitting defeat.

“Fuck,” he muttered, thumping his hands against the wheel. The timing could’ve been worse - he wasn’t on a life-or-death excursion or anything - but this wasn’t ideal, either. He’d have to track down someone who could help and get them to stick around for long enough to be sure he wasn’t stranded. It was a tall order, considering most of the people he’d call friends had finished their finals earlier in the week and had already headed home for the winter break. Except - he had AAA, he remembered suddenly. His dad had insisted on signing him up for extra roadside coverage before he left for college, and he was fairly certain he’d been renewing his membership regularly. Unless he’d forgotten. Which was an equally strong possibility. He hadn’t had a reason to use it and had consequently let it lapse into some obscure Emergencies Only corner of his brain.

He lifted his hips, tugged his wallet out of his back pocket, and flipped it open. He sorted through the credit cards he needed to pay, his real ID, his fake ID, a truly embarrassing stack of frequent buyer cards for sandwich shops and burrito joints, grocery club cards - there was his AAA card, tucked away under the plastic Sheriff’s badge he’d been dragging around since he was a kid. The expiration date printed on the card wasn’t a promising sign, but they probably didn’t send a new one out every year. If they did, it might be buried somewhere in the pile of mail he kept intending to clear out, but it shouldn’t impact his actual record. It was worth a try.

He dialed the number for emergency services, confirmed his identity, and waited for the computerized menu to shuffle him through to a dispatcher near his current location.

“Good morning, this is Erica,” a bored-sounding voice greeted him with. “Thanks for calling AAA; how can we be of assistance today?”

“My battery’s dead, I think,” he said, but winced and backtracked. He wasn’t sure what his coverage included. Maybe calling had been a rash idea; he hadn’t been thinking clearly and hadn’t had time to do any research, which was grating on him now. He hated entering a scenario without knowing what he was getting into. “It probably needs a jump, that’s all. Or a good, solid kick. You know.”

“Mhm,” she said; this clearly hadn’t been her first call of the day, and probably not the first from a broke college student trying to wheedle his way out of a bad situation. “Are you safely out of traffic right now?”

“Yeah, I’m at home. I uh, I’ve been out of bed for maybe five minutes. Not long enough to break down on the highway or anything, unless I’d been sleep-driving. Which is - not a thing I’ve ever done. Obviously. Because that’d be incredibly dangerous.” He’d been aiming for a laugh but knew as the words slipped out that they’d fallen short of his intention; he tried futilely to pile them back into his mouth as more tumbled free to join them. He sounded painfully awkward, at best - maybe hungover, although he’d only been up late because he was playing video games - and the dispatcher wouldn’t care _why_ his morning was quickly shaping up to be a disaster. She had to work her way through a script and move on to the next person, and he was wasting her time.

There was a pause, like she wanted to say something not permitted by her job, but she carried on smoothly. “Let me get your information, then; we should be able to send someone out to you within forty-five minutes. Stay in a safe place, near your vehicle, until our technician arrives.”

That wasn’t the best news; he was already shivering in his too-thin hoodie and would absolutely be shit out of luck when it came to the _reason_ he was out of bed at this unholy time of day to begin with. But what could he do? Nothing, other than sit and wait, and meekly give Dispatcher Erica the necessary details.

He considered going back up to his room but abandoned the idea as requiring too much effort, not to mention the potential for further interaction with Evan. Instead, he curled into a tight ball in his seat, pushed his hood over his head to retain as much body heat as he could, and texted his woes to Scott, who was on the East Coast, so theoretically awake and functional by now. He would have called his dad, but...they worried enough about each other, as it was. His dad bugged him about his Jeep as often as he ranted about the artery-clogging single man, police station diet. Neither one of them particularly liked being proven right. It’d be better to fill him in on the story once it’d been safely resolved.

His phone pinged with an alert after only ten minutes or so, and he unfolded his limbs, falling suavely out of the Jeep as a truck pulled into the parking lot.

 _Holy shit,_ he texted Scott, fumbling to get the words out before he had to actually interact with the driver. _The battery guy is literally the most attractive person I’ve ever seen. Or imagined. It’s possible I’m dreaming._

He pocketed his phone and waved at the driver. “Hey. Good morning. I mean, not for me, because of this.” He gestured toward his Jeep. “And not for you, I guess, since you got dragged out to deal with it. But uh. In general.” He scratched his nose and gave up on good impressions. This was not his day. Ordinarily, he’d preface any attempts at flirting with handsome strangers with at least a cup of coffee. And probably a shower. Or, at a minimum, clothes that didn't have visible soup stains from his failed attempt at making dinner in a hot pot, after stabbing the can open with scissors because he couldn't be bothered to track down a can opener.

It wasn't easy, being a college student. This guy might not understand that, though; he looked anywhere from two to ten years older - it was hard to tell, with the beard, and Stiles manfully resisted the urge to self-consciously rub over the patchy stubble he hadn't put in the effort to shave over the weekend. Or...during finals week.

This was all going terribly.

“It's my job,” Hot Battery Dude said, carrying a metal clipboard and a bulky battery tester over to the Jeep. “I'm Derek. This one yours?”

“Stiles,” he said. “Yeah, this is Roscoe. He's my best friend, but he's a little tired and soggy today, I guess.” He patted the side of the Jeep, tracing his thumb over a scratch some asshole had left in the paint. No one in his building could park, apparently. Or open their car doors without checking to see whether they'd be slamming into another vehicle’s beautiful side.

“Pop for the hood for me, and we’ll get him up and running again.” Insanely Attractive Technician Derek was smiling, ever so slightly, when Stiles emerged from his affectionate interaction with his injured darling, but he thinned his lips back out when he caught Stiles’s gaze.

Adonis In Fluorescent Yellow Pants propped the hood up and clipped the leads onto the battery, pressing buttons on the machine attached to the wires. Stiles hovered over him, not sure how best to help. Over the years, he’d vacillated between using YouTube videos to learn how to fix things on his own, and putting his beloved friend in the hands of more qualified (but pocket-emptying) professionals. It meant he knew enough about the Jeep’s inner workings to make a royal, but well-intentioned, mess.

“Do you know why it’s not starting?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have called you,” Stiles replied mournfully.

Eyebrows of Doom shot him an unamused look. “I meant have you noticed any difficulties lately? Slow to start, odd sounds when the engine’s running, other cases where you’ve had to recharge the battery, symptoms along those lines.”

“No. Well - I mean, yes to all of those things, but nothing super recent. He’s been running okay this past month. I haven’t driven in a couple weeks, though - would that do anything?”

“Possibly. We’ll see, once I give it a bit more juice and take some readings.”

Stiles bit his lip but didn’t press further. When Unearthly Cheekbones asked him to turn the ignition on, he quietly did, then bounced back out of the Jeep in excitement. “You fixed it? That’s awesome!”

“I gave it a boost, like I said; it’ll take about five minutes to run the tests.That’ll give us a better idea.”

He deflated. “Dammit. I was hoping I was being an idiot and overreacting; it would’ve been nice to be told everything was fine and I just hadn’t let him warm up enough before trying again. I was in such a hurry when I got down here, I was barely thinking.”

“Headed somewhere important?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” he sighed. “I was already running late; I’d figured I could...well, that I could run there and straight back, without spending a ton of time getting ready before heading out. Obviously I miscalculated.”

Piercingly Multicolored Eyes raised his eyebrows at him in question when he didn’t continue.

“Limited edition release of a Star Wars game bundle. I was going to get it for my best friend; he hasn’t seen the movies, but I figure with the new ones out, I can finally talk him into it. And, uh. It’d be fun to borrow from him. When he’s too busy to play.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I thought your best friend was your car.”

“My best _human_ friend. He’s thousands of miles away but still my soulmate. Except for the part where he has terrible taste a lot of the time. And ditched me to follow his girlfriend to school, the big ol’ romantic jerk.”

“I’m sorry about the game,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I’d rush you out of here if I could, but I don’t want the battery dying on you again on the way there.”

“Nah man, it’s okay. It was a special deal, that’s all. The regular edition won’t have all the same add-ons, but Scotty won’t know the difference.”

“You would.” Thinks He’s Clever And Kind Of Is shot him a sly look. “But of course it wasn’t a gift for yourself.”

“Couldn’t justify the cost unless I factored it into Christmas expenses.” He tugged at the strings of his hoodie. “You really think the battery would die again if I left now? After you recharged it and everything?”

“Hard to tell; this test’ll give us a recommendation, and then you can make up your mind whether to chance it. Your battery’s pretty old, though. I’d say it’s on its last legs and worth swapping out to be safe.” He scrutinized Stiles, his unfairly pretty eyes cataloging his unmistakeable anxiety and the well-worn state of his clothing. Stiles lifted his chin in response and used the opportunity to shamelessly identify the unusual mix of colors in Sculpted By The Gods’ eyes: he could pick out multiple shades of green, grey, a splash of brown. The combination was, frankly, breathtaking. “I had a call last week, delivering gas to a woman who ran out on the highway,” he continued once he’d gathered whatever information he’d been searching for. “It was rush hour, so by the time I got there, she’d drained her battery by leaving on her hazard lights. I ended up following her to the gas station, to be sure she made it.”

“That was nice of you.”

He shrugged and repeated, “It’s my job.”

Stiles wasn’t sure that part technically fit into the typical job description, but he let it go. “So did she? Make it there alright?”

“It died on the way there, actually. For a couple of seconds, while she was driving - the lights went out, the engine sputtered, and then she said it all kicked back in when she tapped at the ignition. Freaked the hell out of her, and she let me run the full round of tests once we were at the station.”

“So the moral of the story is to let you do your job.”

“It’s better to be safe,” he corrected. “And you should trade yours out.”

Stiles squinted suspiciously at him. “Is this how you trick people into spending more money? Tell them a freaky highway horror story as a warning?”

Probably Should’ve Been Offended simply motioned him over. He pointed at the undeniable words scrolling across the screen: BAD CELL - REPLACE. “Your alternator’s on the dodgy side, too. I’d need to take it into the shop to check it out in more detail; it may be okay for the time being, but I wouldn’t be comfortable sending your friend here out in high speed traffic, or on a long trip.”

“Fuck,” he breathed, digging his fingers into his hair. “I can’t - dude, I’m supposed to be leaving for my dad’s in a couple days.”

“Where does your dad live?”

“Only a few hours north. But I don’t have any other way of getting there; Beacon Hills isn’t hooked into a lot of transportation options, and it’s not like anyone else from here’s heading that direction and can let me hitch a ride.”

Model Masquerading As A Mechanic lifted his head, startled, then frowned down at the clipboard, where he’d filled in the Jeep’s details and had Stiles write out his name and address. “Stilinski. The sheriff.”

“That’s my dad,” he said, distracted from his growing panic into momentary pride. “Wait, you know Beacon Hills?”

He huffed out a soft breath. “You could say that. I grew up there. Left when I was a teenager. I knew your dad; he was a good guy.”

“Derek,” Stiles said slowly, pulling Hot Battery Dude’s actual name back to the surface of his memory. If he’d ever met someone that insanely attractive, he would’ve remembered them, no question, but there _was_ something oddly familiar about the arch of his nose, maybe even the shape of his ears, now that he was looking for it.

He looked uncomfortable now, as though he was wishing he hadn’t brought it up. “Derek Hale,” he said, keeping his attention on his pen as he carefully wrote down the particulars of Roscoe’s heartbreaking verdict.

Hale. That rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it at first, until he traced his memory back to a year or so after his mom had gotten sick, when he’d been spending a good amount of time hanging around the station. Two kids had been brought in one night, both smelling strongly of smoke, the girl’s sooty face streaked with tears, and the boy’s gaze unfocused, haunted, as though - his entire family had died in a fire, while he watched helplessly, held back by firefighters and deputies. He’d had dark hair, unforgettable eyes, and ears that he hadn’t grown into yet.

“I remember you,” he said, instead of offering his sympathy for an event that couldn’t be wiped away with an apology from a near-stranger. “You and your sister stayed with us for a few nights, until my dad tracked down - your uncle, I think it was.”

“You shared your Star Wars figures with me.” He dared a furtive glance at Stiles, a quiet, bittersweet nostalgia linking its way between them, shortening that distance from a past they hadn’t fully escaped. “I stole your Boba Fett.”

“Oh my god. You _did_ , you fucker. I remember that. I made my dad search the entire house with me, and drive me to the park to dig around in the sandbox. He never turned up, and my dad lectured me about being more responsible. I can’t believe that was you!”

“I felt bad about it, but-” He scratched at his beard, seeming to forget he had the pen in his hand until the cap bumped against his nose. He dropped his hand sheepishly. “It was the one nice thing that I could hang onto back then. I still have it, actually. If you want it back, I mean.”

“Ordinarily, I would say yes, absolutely. He was my _favorite_ , and I'm pretty sure I remember telling you that when we were choosing which bounty hunters to be.”

Derek looked shifty. He paused before admitting, “I liked the backstories you made up for him. You insisted that he had to have a reason for what he did, and that even though he seemed like the bad guy on the surface, that didn't mean we knew his whole story.”

“And you said sometimes bad people do bad things, and they don't get to excuse it just because you like the way they look.” It was all coming back to him now: the empty despair on Derek’s face; the word “arson” whispering through the station. The rumors, after, about a pretty substitute teacher who’d been seen keeping Derek after class, and who'd disappeared right after the fire. How Derek flinched away when people tried to touch him, even kind, thoughtful Tara, who'd reached out to adjust the shock blanket slipping down his shoulders.

“You said you were perfectly aware of that, and that you were _explaining_ , not _excusing_ , his actions. That if you didn't understand someone’s motivations, you couldn't figure out how to stop them.” He fixed his beautiful eyes on Stiles, and he couldn't believe he hadn't recognized him right away. The deep-set sorrow had faded to somewhere in the depths, but the rest was still there - the intensity with which he listened, his solemn attention to an eleven year old’s lecture on properly analyzing the criminal mind.

“I was such a little shit.”

“Maybe. But you treated me like a real person, not someone you had to tiptoe around and be nice to. I've never forgotten that.”

His sister had been set up in their spare room for those nights, with Derek, after some debate, camped out on the floor of Stiles’s. He'd hung off the bed and talked enthusiastically to him all night, finally dozing off mid-word and only waking up when he thumped fully out of bed and onto the floor.

“You can keep Boba Fett,” Stiles said, feeling generous. “I was so upset after you left, my dad eventually bought me a vintage Han Solo - with Tauntaun! - that I'd been wanting for ages. It's in kind of rough condition, but still - best toy ever. Best _character_ ever, obviously, so I got over it.” What he didn't reveal was that he'd sat down in the sandbox and cried, not because he missed the action figure, but because he hadn't known Derek was leaving for good. Hell, he would've given up all his toys - okay, maybe _most_ of his toys - if it would've convinced the boy with sad eyes, who’d laughed at him but tucked him back into bed, to stay.

Derek gave him a soft smile. “I always liked Leia. She reminded me of Laura - my sister. Tough and smart and resourceful.”

“How’s she doing?”

The smile dimmed, his face shuttering. “She, uh. She's not around anymore. An accident, three years ago.”

“Fuck, I'm sorry.”

He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug, with that visible discomfort Stiles knew all too well. Talking about your dearly departed relatives made everyone feel awkward, inevitably leaving the bereaved one to smooth over the conversation, implicitly apologizing for dampening everyone else’s moods.

He hated it. He'd never figured out a way around it. It made him twitchy and vaguely angry when people tested the waters, like they'd have to deal with his tears if they pressed too hard, so he came right out and asked how it'd happened - if Derek didn't want to talk about it, it'd be clear, and they'd drop it.

“You haven't changed much,” Derek said, instead of responding right away. He fiddled with the clipboard, which he'd been holding throughout their conversation; Stiles had completely lost track of the time and was only absently shivering as the wind picked up a little, bringing with it a hint of incoming rain.

“I was going to claim, earlier, that I don't normally talk this much, but now I can't lie about it. You already know me from when I was a total chatterbox kid.”

“You talk the right amount. Laura got on my case about how quiet I was, but I never thought that was true. It always seems like more, when you're the one speaking.”

“Not to everyone - you should sit in on my philosophy class and revisit that statement. But thanks; I think there was a compliment in there, possibly.” Derek didn't debate it, so he filed it away as such. “I’m really sorry to hear about Laura, though. I don’t remember her nearly as well, but she was nice. Super pretty. Brave, like you said.”

“She was hard to get along with, sometimes, but - I miss her.” He carefully read Stiles’s expressions before going on. “Her boyfriend was driving; he had a nice car, but he didn't take great care of it, and a tire blew right when they hit a patch of black ice. It was kind of a freak accident, but the police report said he was going too fast for the weather conditions. The car flipped. Neither of them made it out.”

“That's awful.”

“Yeah.”

They let that exchange hang in the air; there wasn't a lot more to say. Stiles felt raw and untethered when he thought about his mom, and he'd had nearly a decade to adjust to life without her. How did Derek cope, with his entire family taken away in such abrupt, violent ways, without even a chance to clutch at their hands in a hospital bed and struggle with finding the words to say goodbye?

“Is that why you do this now?” He indicated Derek’s branded jacket and the wide-legged pants with thick reflective bands sewn along the legs.

“Partly. My best friend’s girlfriend suggested it when I was finishing up school, and it felt like a good fit. I like helping people; making sure they're safe on the road is a bonus.”

“Well...now I feel like shit for planning to tell you that I’d take my car in for service.”

“Instead, you're going to try driving to Beacon Hills on a dead battery?” He gave him an extremely judgmental look, which he definitely deserved.

“I don't know what else to do! The lady said this whole thing’s included in my membership fees, but the battery’s extra, right?”

“Yeah. If you can't afford it, I could come back when I'm off shift and help you install a new one - you might be able to save a little money by shopping around. But the alternator needs to be checked, and I don't think there's time to do that before you’re wanting to leave.”

“That is _definitely_ not in your job description.” He rubbed his hands over his face, grimacing at the cold and his inability to make a decision. “Fuck, I don't know what to do. My dad’s working double shifts right now so he can take days off when I'm there; I can't ask him to squeeze in two round trips, especially not with such short notice.”

“You really don't have any other options?”

“No. Roscoe’s my buddy; we've been through everything together. You sure I can't stick on some chewing gum and limp along through the end of the year?”

Derek’s dark brows drew together; he seemed, at least, to be actively thinking it through, but he burst Stiles’s bubbling hopes by shaking his head. “With the rain we’re supposed to be finally getting this month? I'd be more worried about you never making it home at all.”

A valid concern. He winced at it but couldn't give up so easily. “I already skipped Thanksgiving. It was the most depressing thing, being stuck on campus while everyone else was off with their families, but I got through it because I knew I had the entire winter break on the horizon. I can't miss _Christmas_. I'm all my dad’s got.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Derek bundled up the battery tester, shut the hood, and clicked absently at his pen. He started to speak several times, scrutinized Stiles, and stopped. Stiles knew enough to shut his mouth and wait it out. “Okay,” he finally said, “I wouldn't normally do this, but I can get by with the truck, if I need to. If I let you borrow my car, you'd bring it back in one piece? You'd treat it like a substitute Roscoe?”

Stiles gaped at him. “You can't _give me your car_. That's not a fair exchange for an action figure with a wonky leg.”

“It's not a gift, for fuck’s sake. I said _borrow_. I'll keep your Jeep as collateral, if it comes to that.”

“That's an amazing offer, dude. Ridiculous, but amazing.”

“So that's a yes?”

Stiles hung back as Derek put his equipment away. Well-Muscled Handyman, he thought. Too Generous For His Own Damn Good. Boy A Little Piece Of His Heart Had Been Missing For Nine Years.

“It's a qualified yes.”

“And what's the condition? That I fix your Jeep while you're away?” He seemed ready to agree, which was even _more_ ridiculous, the selfless bastard.

“That you find a safe spot for me to store it.”

“I can do that,” he agreed easily. “I've got off-street parking, and my roommate and his girlfriend are driving to his parents’ for the holidays, so a space’ll be free.”

“And you come with me.”

Derek stared at him.

“Look, dude, I don't know if you have other plans, but...think about it, okay? Like I said, it's just me and my dad. I mean, Scott and his mom will pop in for presents and stuff, but mostly it's just us two watching tv and failing at feeding ourselves. It's not glamorous, but - we have a spare room, and my dad would be glad to see you.”

“I don't have other plans,” he acknowledged after giving Stiles an extended, disbelieving look. “I have no idea where my uncle is this year. I was going to - I don't know. Stay home. Work.”

Try to forget about what it was like to spend the holidays with a family, he didn't say, but Stiles heard it, loud and clear.

“So you're telling me that hanging out alone in your house, or apartment, or whatever, is preferable to spending Christmas with the Stilinskis?”

“No, I-” Derek hadn't gotten past that wide-eyed look yet, like he needed to be convinced Stiles wasn't fucking with him. “I mean, I am working. Not the days right around Christmas, Erica made me take those off, but cars don't stop breaking down during holidays.”

“Wasn't asking you to move in, dude. Or trapping you there; my dad could probably drive me back at the end of break without it being too big of a hassle. So whaddya say? It’s _Christmas_ ,” he repeated, the strongest argument he could summon.

He wavered, ready to tip into agreement with another nudge, but Stiles restrained his urge to keep pushing. He didn’t want to force Derek to spend time with him; it had to be his choice, free and clear.

“I’ll do it,” he said, after a truly astounding array of expressions had crossed his impossibly beautiful face, Stiles watching each transition in fascination. The final one was some odd mixture of baffled and pleased, so he’d take it. “My condition is that you agree not to drive anywhere until we get your Jeep fixed. All the way, and we’ll figure out the finances as we go. Deal?”

Stiles started to object, but it was more than fair. And he couldn't complain about scraping the bottom of his bank account when he suspected that Derek planned to do most of the labor himself. He'd argue with him about that later, and about how much he'd be allowed to help. It'd be nice to have someone he could trust to not rip him off, though. He couldn't get over his suspicion of the mechanics in Beacon Hills, who charged immense amounts of money and returned Roscoe a little the worse for wear every time. They never even bothered to _clean_ him. How could he believe they'd been careful inside the engine when they left the exterior streaked with grease, and tracked dirty footprints in the footwells?

“Deal.” Derek’s perfectly shaped mouth quirked up when Stiles stuck out his hand to shake on the bargain, but he went along with it, wrapping his warm fingers around his.

“Good. You said you were leaving when?”

“My dad’s expecting me on Tuesday. Doesn't matter what time; he won't be waiting dinner or anything, and I don't think he's off his shift until mid-afternoon at the earliest.”

His dad would give him hell when he found out about all of this. Come to think of it, he was massively shooting himself in the foot on that count by inviting Derek to join them, but it’d be worth the “I told you so’s” generated by Roscoe’s latest malfunction.

It had to be, really. He couldn’t imagine how horrible it’d feel to watch Christmas come and go without anyone there to share it with him. It was rough enough, making it through the holidays each year with a phantom limb missing, each of them half-expecting his mother to hurry down the stairs, late for the festivities and trailing apologies in her wake. The fact that Derek hadn’t turned him down flat spoke for itself; the ache was as sharp, or sharper, around the holidays, and had to be magnified by the absence of each family member.

“I'm working for a few hours in the morning, so that should work out okay. I'll give you a call.” He started to duck into the cab of his truck, but Stiles stopped him.

“Don't you need my number?”

He tapped the clipboard. “You wrote it down. That's your cell, right?”

“Why Derek Hale, do you pick up all your customers’ numbers this way?”

Derek flushed slightly when Stiles winked at him. “It's a job, not a dating scene.”

“You'd be surprised. I'm betting there are some sad ladies out there, waiting by their phones for the Hot Battery Dude to call them. You're a heartbreaker and a half.”

“Goodbye, Stiles. I'll see you on Tuesday. Don't move the Jeep before then.”

He pulled his phone out as soon as the truck was out of sight and swiped past Scott’s messages, which read, in order:

 _you’re not dreaming because *I’m* wide awake and it sucks balls_  
_and not in the fun way_  
_pics tho! kira wants to see_  
_she said to clarify she meant the hot dude, not balls_  
_stiles? where’d you go? did he kidnap you? do I need to call someone?_  
_answer me bro_

 _I'm fine,_ he typed back, in case Scott actually got worried enough to call the police or, worse, his dad. _Turned out to be the love of my life, that's all. You'll meet him at Christmas. Fill you in later._

 _wtf?????!_ came back almost immediately, but he was already dialing another number.

“Heyyyyyy dad,” he said, when the line clicked through. “Funny story. How do you feel about moving some of those boxes out of the spare room?”

***

“I can't believe you hooked up with the drunk college kid I sent you to rescue,” Erica said, plopping herself down in Boyd’s lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the side of her head, but otherwise didn't join in on judging Derek’s life choices. There was a reason they'd been best friends since school, and roommates for many years.

Erica was - well, Erica was his best friend, too, although he rarely admitted it. Being around her was like having a sister again, which meant that he loved her fiercely but often wanted to strangle her. She felt the same, he knew; it was why she'd handpicked him for that particular call. She'd been mad at him for a week, and funneling the most obnoxious customers his way was the best punishment method she'd identified yet. The joke was on her this time, and it ticked her off.

“He wasn't drunk. And we didn't hook up. And he's not a kid - he's gotta be twenty by now. It's been a long time.”

“I should've paid more attention to his information,” she grumbled. “Beacon Hills. How was I supposed to know he'd turn out to be your long lost childhood friend?”

“We weren't friends, really. We only knew each other for a few days; I haven't even heard anything about him or the sheriff in years. Caught me completely by surprise when I realized who he was.” He’d been drawn to him right off the bat, with an odd sense of immediate connection he'd never felt before. He'd assumed, at first, that it was because the guy was eye-catchingly attractive. He was exactly Derek’s type: tall, lean, mouthy, funny but not always because he'd meant to be. Dark, intelligent eyes and a whipsmart brain. Until Stiles mentioned his hometown, it hadn't registered that he _knew_ him, already, that his heart was latching onto the few fond fragments of his past.

“That's your smitten face, and I hate it.”

“Have you ever _seen_ his smitten face? I didn't think it existed.”

“I've dated people!” he protested. “Including while I've lived with you, so you'd know better than Erica.”

“Not the part I expected you to argue with,” Erica marveled. “I might forgive you, if this is finally a real thing.”

“Dating isn't the same as love,” Boyd contributed. “I've seen you date a few people, but why do you think I never bothered to get to know them? They weren't going to last; it was obvious to all of us.”

Derek felt cornered, by his friends and his own confused muddle of feelings. “I don't know him,” he repeated, for his own benefit. “He's someone I spent time with years ago, when we were kids. We're completely different people now.”

“Yet you're spending Christmas with him and his dad, instead of going to Grandma Boyd’s house with us.” There was the crux of Erica’s recent anger: she'd done her best to convince Derek to join them, but he'd insisted that he was looking forward to the quiet of a few days off, with nothing requiring his time or attention for once. It worried her and hurt her feelings, which was a particularly volatile combination.

Plus, Boyd’s grandma loved him for some reason, so his presence would draw some of her focus away from her attempts to pry future grandchildren out of Erica. Or plan their wedding, even though neither of them had technically proposed yet. He wondered if that was a plan for the holidays, actually. Had Erica wanted him to be there when she popped the question, or had she guessed that Boyd was gearing up to ask her when his family was around to celebrate with them?

No, he decided. Neither of them would want a big spectacle. They’d opt for something small, private, and linked to some mutually cherished memory. He didn't need to feel guilty about saying yes to Stiles. Although he wasn't sure he could pinpoint, even to himself, what had made him agree.

“It sounded nice,” he said, unable to settle on a defensive or apologetic tone. “I haven't been back there in a while, and they were both good to us - to me. Seemed like it was worth revisiting, just to see.”

Erica leaned her head against Boyd’s. “Then I claim full credit for this love story in the making. Which means I get to choose your firstborn’s name.”

“Dibs on best man,” Boyd said.

Erica lifted away from him, slapping at his shoulder. “I've changed my mind! Trade me. You can be the babynamer - I'm throwing Derek’s bachelor party instead. I already have ideas.”

“I bet you do,” he said calmly, “but dibs can't be revoked. Sorry, boo.”

Derek retreated to his room, leaving them to negotiate the split of responsibilities for the future wedding he certainly hadn't agreed to. They were as bad as Grandma Boyd; he'd point that out if their plans got out of hand.

He didn't even know if - Stiles had called him hot, but that didn't mean anything. A lot of people did that. And invited random people home for important holidays. To spend time with them and their dad.

Okay, maybe he was more hopeful than he wanted to acknowledge. There was something there - a hint of possibility. A bright shard of light dancing in his chest, waiting to see what direction the wind took it.

He'd thank Erica. Later. After Christmas. Depending upon how terribly everything turned out.

“I wish you could've seen him, Laura,” he whispered to the empty air. He scrubbed a hand over his face. He hadn't been in Beacon Hills in nearly a decade, he reminded himself. It'd probably changed so much over the years that it'd be barely recognizable now. It wouldn't feel like going home, but maybe it wouldn't feel like a yawning, dark chasm full of thorns anymore, either.

If he was lucky. Which was up for debate.

***

It was stupid to feel so excited about his last day of work, but Derek essentially vibrated through the calls he responded to over the course of the morning. Most of them were routine - drained batteries from forgotten dome lights, vehicle lockouts, fuel delivery - with only one that made his palms sweat and his heart judder uncomfortably. In the end, it turned out to be nothing; the young woman who’d called with a frantic report of brake failure on the freeway had simply hydroplaned, her car drifting out of her control for a few heartstopping beats, sending her into a panic.

He tested the pressure on all four tires to be sure, did a quick check under the hood, and cautioned her about overcorrecting in inclement weather. He kept an eye on her as she drove away, to be sure she had a better handle on the road, but there was only so much he could do. He knocked his knuckles on his dash for luck, then buckled in and set out for the next call, the last he’d handle before going off shift. Rainy days always kept him busy; California drivers fell apart with the barest splash of wet roads, and the week was gearing up for a set of significant storms.

After a substantial amount of debate via texts, he’d agreed to meet Stiles at his apartment; they didn’t live that far apart, and Stiles had promised to take side streets and drive carefully, and to give him a call if the battery had drained again and he couldn’t find someone else to jumpstart it. Even so, he was waiting nervously downstairs, the hood of his coat pulled up, rain dripping from his eyelashes and down his nose, when the Jeep came into sight around the curve of the road.

He guided him into the proper parking space - in the back of the building, sheltered and secure - and pushed his hood back, dashing the water from his hair. Stiles toppled out of his Jeep and approached him, as eager and vibrant as he’d been in their last meeting.

“Nice weather, huh? Sure puts you in the holiday spirit.”

“It’s our best attempt at winter,” he agreed. “Ready to head out?”

“Yeah, I’ll get my stuff. Where’re you parked?”

“That’s me,” he said, pointing to the Camaro tucked neatly in the spot right next to the Jeep.

“What the fuck,” Stiles breathed, dropping the bag he’d started to extract from his passenger seat so he could reverently stroke his hands down the car’s sleek black sides. “Is it too late to uninvite you and take you up on the initial offer? I can’t believe you were going to give me this sexy beast.”

“I wasn’t going to-” he objected on reflex, but the grin creeping onto Stiles’s face made him sigh and roll his eyes instead. He picked up the abandoned bag and hefted it into the trunk. “Are you moving out or something? Looks like you stuffed your entire room in here.”

Stiles dropped another overflowing bag next to it. “Starving college student, remember? I do my laundry at home.”

A typical college experience, he supposed. Not one he was personally familiar with; Peter was out of the country more often than not, doing who the hell knew what, and he and Laura had preferred to spend as little time as possible in his house. Money hadn’t been much of an issue, either, although he hated the reasons behind that. Living off your family’s life insurance - there simply weren’t words for how it felt to know that every cent you spent was coated in your loved ones’ ashes.

Both of them had gotten jobs as soon as they could, fighting to keep above the rising crest of bills and refusing to accept the checks Peter wrote to bail them out.

“This is shit,” Laura had finally said, collapsing onto their shabby apartment’s thrift store couch, her clothes steaming with the stench of yet another exploding trash bag - a sadly frequent consequence of fast food chains’ cost-saving methods. The one time she’d taken initiative by double-bagging the bins, her manager had yelled at her for ten minutes and docked her paycheck. “I’m sick of it. Mom and Dad wouldn’t want us living like this.”

“What’re you saying?” He’d defensively folded his hands together, the latest burn marks from the coffee shop’s too-hot espresso machine starkly visible on his knuckles. They had jobs - not perfect or well-paying, but decent - and they were both alive. What more did they need?

“They'd want us to take the money. Mom would _hate_ this. She'd tell us to take care of ourselves first, and each other. After that, we can figure out what to do with the rest. Invest, support charities. Something. But letting it rot in a bank while we scrape ourselves thin is stupid. It's wasteful.”

“I don't want to take it for granted,” he'd said, shrinking away from the proposal but knowing it made far more sense than the self-flagellation they'd been putting themselves through.

“We won't. We’ll keep each other accountable, okay? I won't let you turn into a spoiled shithead. But we need to stop feeling so damn guilty for living.”

Four years later, she was gone, too. He shouldered it all on his own, now - the money, the responsibility, the fear that he was wasting his entire life, when he'd been the only one spared.

Erica dragged him out of his head as much as she could manage; tension gathered around her eyes when he tried to fill in for sick coworkers and floated the idea of picking up another job on the side. She understood him - what made him tick and when he was straying past what he actually needed and into self-destructive tendencies - and she did her best to help him balance before he tipped too far in one direction. But she wasn't Laura.

“You've got to live, Derek,” a whisper of her ghost reminded him, as Stiles creatively arranged his belongings, cramming them into a space that frankly seemed too small to fit it all.

“I'm trying,” he told her, and Stiles turned to him, flushed with exertion and success.

“Trying to hold back your concerns that I'm going to bend your gorgeous car out of shape? He can hold a lot, actually.” He patted the trunk, which he’d been more careful about slamming shut than Derek had expected. It shouldn't have been surprising, though; Stiles treated his Jeep with a degree of tenderness that bordered on obsessive. It was nice, Derek thought, to see that he extended it to a vehicle he'd only just met. Even if it was only a surface level attraction, and not the slow growth of a longstanding romance.

“I know,” he muttered before his internal critic could harass him about his overthinking.

“He’s a beauty,” Stiles agreed, assuming that Derek wasn't a crazy person who talked to ghosts while ignoring the human being standing right in front of him. “You’re letting me drive, right?”

He curled his fingers around his keys, pressing the cold metal against his skin. “It’s raining,” he said. “And I know how my car handles.” He could picture, in vivid detail, everything that could possibly go wrong if he let Stiles slide behind the wheel. He always offered to drive when he was in a car with someone else; it meant he'd played designated driver more often than he'd wanted over the years, but it was a small price to pay.

He didn't know how to explain that letting someone drive on their own - and trusting that they'd be okay without him - was less terrifying than the prospect of sitting helplessly in the passenger seat, unable to stop the vehicle from skidding out of control. It wasn't rational, maybe, but even the thought of it shot tense anxiety through his entire body.

To his credit, Stiles didn’t push, or comment on the distress Derek knew had to be flickering behind his eyes. “Maybe when the rain lets up, then. Taking him for a spin would be the highlight of my year, but being a passenger’ll be great, too. Must ride like a dream, huh?”

“It’s alright,” he allowed, breathing through his relief. “Something nice to come home to, when I’ve been driving trucks all day.”

“I bet.” Stiles dropped a kiss on the frame of his Jeep, told him he’d always love him best, and slid into the Camaro.

“You're a strange one,” he couldn't seem to stop himself from saying.

“You're one to talk,” Stiles countered, but grinned at him. He probably hadn't gotten away with it, then; Stiles was choosing to not comment on Derek’s peculiarities, but he was undeniably more observant than he let himself appear. It made sense, as someone who'd grown up in a sheriff’s household, largely raised by the other officers at the station. He wasn't sure if it made him feel better or worse, to be so easily seen through. It meant he had to pretend less, he supposed. Stiles knew his history and hadn't backed away yet.

And it'd all led to this: Stiles camped out happily in his car, his intriguingly long fingers fiddling with the radio and stroking over the dash. It was going to be a damn long drive at this rate.

***

Stiles dialed down his distraction level once they were on the road, and proved to be an unexpectedly good passenger. He kept their conversation flowing, but on topics that Derek could periodically tune in and out of without losing the thread. When the traffic thickened, Stiles twisted in his seat to check for lane-changing gaps, after confirming that it'd be helpful.

Derek relaxed before long; his car was steady under him, purring quietly and responding exactly as he wanted. The roads were wet, but not slick; the first few hours of rainfall were the most dangerous, with the grease and grit loosened by the water, sending your tires sliding if you weren't careful. He breathed more easily, his shoulders dropping. Stiles noticed, of course, and took the opportunity to switch back to a radio station he liked better.

They were about half an hour outside of Beacon Hills when Stiles started shifting restlessly in his seat. Derek glanced at him, then fixed his eyes back on the road. “Something wrong?”

The storm had abated to some extent, the wipers clicked down to a gentle pause and swipe pattern, rather than the constant, rapid swish of the first hour or so of the drive. The traffic had thinned, too, as they branched off to the less frequented two lane roads that led to sleepy, out of the way Beacon Hills.

“I've been thinking,” he said, which was obvious. His brain probably never shut off, always whirring with new ideas and possibilities. He tapped his fingers along the door, deciding whether to continue. “This car is a total wet dream, but. With everything that's happened, I'd expected you to go with something more - sedate, I guess.”

“Highest safety ratings possible.”

“Right, exactly. I know it's probably rude to ask, and maybe I shouldn't bring it up while we’re driving, but.” He shrugged. “Couldn't help being curious.”

He waited until an oncoming car had passed, then flicked his high beams back on. It wasn't fully dark yet, but the overhanging clouds and minimal lighting on this country road made headlights a necessity. “I've thought about that, too. I've almost traded it in a few times.”

“What stopped you?”

He considered his response, fully aware of Stiles’s unwavering gaze, warm against his skin. “Two main reasons. One is that this car was the first big thing Laura and I bought together. She fell head over heels for it and convinced me it was worth splurging on, as a special thing we could share. After - well, she wasn't driving it that day. So I brought it back to California with me.”

“Roscoe was my mom’s.”

Derek dared another quick glance at him. He'd turned his face to the window, looking out at the rain and the dark treeline streaming by.

“That's why he means so much to you.”

“Yeah.” He thumbed away a bit of condensation forming on the window. “I love him anyway; he's seen me through a lot. But it makes it harder to let him go, knowing how important he was to my mom. I try my best to take care of him the way she would've.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. The Camaro had taken some convincing, but every time he saw it now, he felt a connection to his sister. He could tap into the brilliance of her spirit. Revisit the way she'd laughed herself into tears after they'd signed the paperwork, musing on how impractical but wonderful it'd been to take home something new and shiny and in constant danger of being stolen or vandalized.

“And the second reason?”

That took longer to put into words. “I'm tired of being afraid,” he finally said. “It was something - Laura and I talked about it, all the time. More than I ever wanted to, honestly.”

Stiles huffed a soft laugh.

“Not about this, but - in general. You know.”

“I do,” he agreed softly.

“It's not the car itself that puts you in danger. It's how you treat it, and how you prepare. How you respond when something bad happens.”

“Good advice,” Stiles said, understanding that he was talking about more than just cars. He patted the dashboard to lighten the conversation. “And I'm glad, for my sake, that you kept him. Don't tell Roscoe how thoroughly I'm enjoying being in a car that doesn't rattle and smell.”

“I would never betray your confidence,” he said seriously, his lips twitching up at the side when Stiles beamed that impossible smile of his at him.

Fear had ruled so much of Derek's life, paralyzing him from pursuing what he'd truly wanted until it was too late, on many occasions. “I'm _trying_ ,” he muttered to himself on most mornings, hauling himself out of bed and gritting his teeth against the day.

Some days were harder than others. Sometimes he was halfway through his shower before a spike of anxiety hit him; occasionally he made it to the end of a workday without his hands shaking. He'd given up on trying to “fix” himself; it was impossible to return to the person he'd been before he'd met Kate, or watched his family burn. He could only do his best with who he was now; it'd taken years to accept how much he'd changed, and the fact that there was no way to go back.

When they'd moved into their new apartment - Derek mostly smuggled in, too young to be on the lease - Laura had done all the cooking for at least the first six months. They couldn't afford to eat out regularly, and Derek tried to pick up the slack, but he could never bring himself to light the matches for the unit’s ancient gas stove. He tried, once, when Laura was working late and he'd gotten sick of gnawing on toast. Laura had come home to find him huddled on their terrible couch, hand tucked into his chest. It hadn't burned him, exactly, but the flare of the gas catching the match, guttering into a hot blue flame - it'd startled him, and he'd had to fight through bone-freezing terror to turn the burner off before letting the panic overtake him.

Laura had sat with him for a while, letting him shake and explain what had happened. The next day, she took him into the kitchen and stood with him while they lit the stove, over and over, her comforting hand on his shoulder, letting him know they weren't in danger.

When he and Boyd selected their apartment, he'd insisted on an electric stove. He could handle it, now, but sometimes you needed to choose your battles. Not every day had to be a fight against your instincts.

His instincts were screaming at him, now, to run. To drop Stiles off and return to his empty apartment. To not let those damn compelling eyes continue piercing past his inept attempts at armor. To keep his heart from doing this - this _thing_ that kept happening in his chest, every time he told Stiles more than he intended, and met exactly the type of response he hadn't known he needed.

“I'm not running,” he thought sternly, managing to keep it to himself this time.

“Good,” a chorus of approving whispers sang back, the echoes of his family reminding him of the passion each one of them had fearlessly poured into their days.

It was a lot to live up to, really.

***

Sheriff Stilinski was a bit older than Derek remembered him - more grey in his hair and deeper lines dug into his face - but he had the same kind smile and calming presence. Derek assumed he'd been filled in on the reason for his last minute appearance at his home, so neither of them commented on the odd circumstances. He merely clapped Derek on the back, told him it was good to see him, and hugged Stiles after refusing to carry his bags for him.

“Claims he's so healthy but can't lift a measly bag of clothes,” Stiles muttered, lugging an overstuffed duffel that seemed in serious danger of exploding in the driveway. Derek heaved another onto his shoulder and followed them inside. It took a couple of trips through what had thankfully subsided into a drizzle, and Stiles collapsed onto the couch when they were done, promising he'd cycle them through the washer later.

“This all you brought, son?” the Sheriff asked, and Derek nodded. He was only planning to stay through the weekend; he didn't need much. “Follow me upstairs, then. I'll show you to your room, since my hospitable kid seems determined to drip all over the living room instead.”

“I'm mourning the fact that you haven't even bought a freaking tree yet,” Stiles called after them, kicking off his wet sneakers but otherwise not budging.

The Sheriff took him through a quick tour: the kitchen, which he was welcome to raid whenever he was hungry; the downstairs bathroom; the upstairs bathroom, which he'd share with Stiles; his bedroom.

“The bed’s got fresh sheets,” he said; the flowered bedspread was worn soft but neatly smoothed across the top, folded back to reveal corners tucked in with military precision. His parting words as he left the room were, “You let me know if you need anything at all; we want you to be comfortable here.”

Derek swallowed, his throat thick with memories of hearing nearly the same words, nine years earlier. Laura had stood straight and tall, thanking him politely. Derek had followed the Sheriff in a haze to Stiles’s bedroom, where he'd been busily rolling out a TIE Fighter-patterned sleeping bag and tugging it as close as possible to his bed.

“You take care of him, kid,” the Sheriff had said, affectionately ruffling Stiles’s thick mess of hair.

“I will,” he’d replied, with the same determination and seriousness he’d seen cross his older version’s face. “I locked the window and everything. Nothing’s gonna get to him in here, not if I can help it.”

The oddest part was that he had felt safe. It wasn't logical; Stiles was four years younger than him, a scrawny kid who couldn't possibly stop something that'd been strong enough to take away both of his parents. Maybe it was his confidence. Or the quiet stability of the Sheriff, sleeping only a room away. Or maybe he just needed to believe in _something_ , anything, to keep from tripping headlong into a pit of despair, and Stiles had been a beacon of light in the storm.

He shot a furtive look at the open door and empty hallway, then pulled the Boba Fett figure from the front pocket of his knapsack. He set it carefully on the dresser, steadying the joints on its hips so it'd stand securely.

“You're home, buddy,” he told it. “Feels weird, huh?”

***

The rain let up enough the next day for Stiles to drag the three of them tree-shopping. By the second lot, he was fuming.

“I can't believe you didn't get one earlier,” he hissed at his dad. “Look at this!” He gestured to the sad excuses for trees scattered across the lot. He’d claimed the sizes were all wrong - either far too large or tiny bush-like clumps he refused to even consider - and all of them had crossed over into dried out, needle-dropping territory.

“I forgot,” the Sheriff admitted. “Besides, you always like to pick them out.”

When Stiles huffed and stomped off to inspect one that might’ve been slightly more green than brown, the Sheriff turned to Derek with a resigned shrug. “He would've hated whatever I brought home, anyway. He's been the official tree picker since he was old enough to decide that was a job. Threw a tantrum the one year I grabbed one on my way home from work, because he said it was the wrong shape. We ended up giving that poor tree to the McCalls and taking him out to find something that lived up to his very specific expectations.”

“Oh my god, Dad,” Stiles said, reappearing in time to hear this slander on his good name, and to catch Derek laughing at it. “You need to preface these kinds of stories with the fact that I was _six_. You make it sound like this was last year or something.”

The Sheriff simply looked at Derek, and he stifled another chuckle.

“I should’ve known this would come around to bite me,” Stiles groused. He pointed at his dad, then Derek. “You, behave. And you - come with me, before he pollutes that pretty brain of yours with more lies about me.”

There turned out to be a bundle of potentially fresher trees stacked at the back of the lot; Stiles had retrieved Derek to help him free them from their bindings so he could evaluate each in turn. “My dad hates this part,” he explained, thumping the base of the next tree on the ground to knock the dry needles loose and shake the branches into a better approximation of their natural shape.

“Can’t imagine why,” he replied as they swapped positions. His crucial role was to hold each tree upright, sap smearing stickily over his hands and arms, while Stiles carefully checked over every angle and inevitably found some fault that made it impossible to take home. The Sheriff had stopped Derek before they’d left the house and gently suggested that he swap his jacket out. He’d obliged, shrugging on the slightly baggy khaki jacket the Sheriff had offered him, not understanding the reason but not concerned enough to question it. It was a smart move, he saw now, born of years of knowing Stiles.

That knowledge wasn’t unique to the Sheriff; Derek had seen a couple of employees start to approach them, then move quickly on once they got a clearer view of who was pulling apart their tree pile.

“They know not to interfere,” Stiles grunted the third time it happened. Derek was amazed he’d even managed to see the person; he was half-buried in a tree, detangling the branches. “We’re helping out, anyway; they have to do this part eventually.”

“Not sure that’s true, kiddo,” the Sheriff said. He’d joined them with a tall cup of spicy-smelling coffee that he’d fetched from somewhere nearby and was hanging back, offering occasional comments and looking pleased as punch to not be getting his hands dirty this year. Derek was beginning to suspect the “forgetting” part had been an outright lie.

“This one,” Stiles finally said, motioning for Derek to slowly twirl the tree once more. He nodded, satisfied at last. “Yeah, this’ll do. Let’s get them to give it a fresh cut and wrap it up for us.”

“The good thing about Stiles,” the Sheriff said conversationally, as the party in question was debating prices with an employee, “is that what you see is what you get. He never tries to be someone he’s not.”

“It’s a good trait. Can be hard to find.”

“It’s a thing to hang onto, I’d say.” He gave him a piercing look, rather like his son’s. “You know, he may be frustratingly picky, but it means that once he decides he likes something, he’s all in. You were always a good kid, Derek. I’m glad he’s found you again.” He didn’t wait for Derek to respond, or even to fully absorb the implication of his words; he strolled to the register to hand over the bills that’d been agreed upon, sipping sedately at his coffee.

They roped the tree to the roof of the Sheriff’s car, tugging at the knots to be sure it wouldn’t lift free on the drive home. Derek spent the time mentally working himself up to getting back in the car; he was doing okay when the Sheriff derailed him by throwing in another wrench.

“You boys hungry? What do you say we swing by the diner and get something to eat?”

Stiles scoffed heartily, breaking apart the buildup of his nerves. “And let the tree dry out? Fat chance, Pops. Good try on breaking your diet because of guests, though.”

Before Derek settled into the back seat, Stiles gripped his hand, squeezing it for a quick moment. “Sorry,” he said, in an undertone his dad wouldn’t overhear. “I shouldn’t have dragged us around town; I wasn’t thinking.”

“It's okay,” he said, startled.

“Still. Next time, when we're not going to get gunk all over your beautiful seats, we’ll take your car. It's not exactly a hardship.” He winked at him and got into the front seat, distracting his dad by explaining, in detail, what he was and was not allowed to eat while Stiles was in town.

The Sheriff was a capable driver, and Derek only clenched his hand on the door handle once, as they turned a gravelly corner on a street that was halfway under construction. It _should_ be okay, he reprimanded himself, releasing his fingers and forcing himself to look calmly out the window. It was - limiting, to say the least, to struggle so often with not being the person controlling their movement. Some days it wasn't as big of an issue; when his anxiety was already churning near the surface, it amplified his less rational worries. But this - this was fine. He trusted these two. With his life, and, more importantly, with their own.

Stiles caught his eye in the rearview mirror and grinned at him. “Derek gets to put on the tree topper this year, since you didn't help one lick at the lot.”

Apparently this task was the highest honor to award in the Stilinski household, because they bickered cheerfully about it the rest of the way home, Derek steadfastly refusing to take a side.

***

Scott, the supposed reason behind their serendipitous meeting, turned out to be a good-natured guy with floppy hair and a friendly, crooked smile. He and his mom brought in a rush of warmth and humor when they entered the Stilinski house on Christmas morning. When Scott was done swaying Stiles side-to-side in a tight hug, Derek lifted his hand in greeting, intending to wave from a distance, or maybe shake his hand. Instead, he found himself awkwardly patting at Scott’s back as he was pulled into a full-body embrace.

“It’s good to meet you!” Scott said, sounding as though he genuinely meant it. “I’ve heard - very few things about you,” he corrected midway when Stiles unsubtly coughed.

“Same,” Derek said. “I mean - Stiles talks about you a lot.”

“Glad to hear he hasn’t forgotten about me yet. I’m sure he’s told you he hasn’t forgiven me for choosing a different school.”

“I support true love,” he said loyally. “At least I get you for the holidays. Whatever, c’mere, I got you a really shitty present.”

“Breakfast first,” his dad called from the table, where he was peeling the cellophane off the pack of jumbo-sized muffins the McCalls had handed over when they’d entered.

“Fine, but you’re taking a blueberry one. Derek, you want chocolate?”

“Anything’s fine,” he said, but couldn’t help feeling pleased when Stiles snagged the double-chocolate muffin away from Scott and passed it to him.

He’d eaten about half of it, accepting a mug of coffee from the Sheriff midway through, when Stiles sidled over and held out a bite of his apple crumble muffin. “Trade you?” At Derek’s nod, he fed him the piece, then pinched off a generous helping of chocolate for himself, licking his fingers and making approving noises.

Behind Stiles’s back, the Sheriff raised his eyebrows at Scott’s mother, and she hid her smile behind her Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department mug. Derek pretended, ineffectively, not to notice.

Their traditions turned out to be on the casual side. Once everyone had refilled their coffee and moved into the living room, they lined up a stack of their favorite Christmas movies to stretch throughout the day and opened presents with the tv on in the background.

“It’d be pretty sad with only the two of us,” the Sheriff explained from his armchair next to Derek’s side of the couch. “Thankfully, Melissa’s been bringing Scott over for years.”

“We came up with the idea after my husband left,” she explained, handing Derek a neatly wrapped gift that revealed a couple pairs of warm socks. “Claudia - Stiles’s mom - was my best friend in college. After, too, of course. It was inevitable that these two would turn out to be inseparable, just like we were.”

“Friendship’s in our blood,” Stiles agreed. He unobtrusively nudged his leg closer to Derek’s. “But it’s who you’ve got around you for Christmas that matters, not the sheer numbers. And sometimes that changes over time.”

The Sheriff’s mouth thinned out - when he’d spoken, he hadn’t been thinking about Derek’s alternatives for this season, or why he was in their living room, it was clear - but before he had a chance to come up with something that’d jar them out of the cozy atmosphere they’d been building, Stiles pounced on a gift he’d spotted hidden behind the tree. When he sat back down on the couch, he left a bigger gap between himself and Scott, maintaining that steady pressure against Derek’s side.

“I can’t believe you got me a present. This sucks; I didn’t even think to buy you anything.”

“I didn’t expect anything,” he said. He’d picked up small gifts for the others, but they certainly shouldn’t have been obligated to do the same for a last minute addition to their group. “Besides, I took your car away. I think that limited your options a fair amount.”

“True. But I’m still an asshole.” He picked the tape away from the paper, carefully at first, but transitioning rapidly to excited, careless shredding when he saw the corner of the box emerge from the wrappings. “Fucking hell, you did not. What the. _How_.” He sputtered out, momentarily unable to form coherent sentences until his brain rebooted.

“What is it?” Scott asked, craning his neck over to see. “Oh, it’s a Star Trek thing.”

“Star _Wars_ , you fucking heathen. You see what I mean?” he asked, lifting imploring eyes to Derek. “This is what I have to deal with.”

“I don’t understand how you’ve known each other your entire lives, and you haven’t managed to get him to watch the movies.”

“Preaching to the choir here. I’ve _tried_. He’s seen parts, but never the whole thing; he always falls asleep, or wanders out of the room, or trips on the rug and breaks his arm.”

“That was you,” the Sheriff pointed out. “You were sneaking snacks in the kitchen and ran back in when Han and Leia were arguing, and nearly cracked your head open in the process.”

“That was upsetting.” He stared into the distance for a moment, his mouth dipping down at the corners, sorrow overlaying his features. “I think he might’ve made it all the way through _Empire_ that day, if it wasn’t for that damn rug.”

“But what is it?” Melissa McCall asked. “You haven't even pulled off all the paper yet.”

“Only the single best thing to come out this year.” He yanked it the rest of the way free and held it lovingly. “This is what I was trying to buy the morning Derek rescued me.”

“But wasn't that supposed to be for-” the Sheriff began, wisely shutting his mouth when Stiles glared at him.

He cradled it to his chest. “It's my precious companion, and I'm never letting go of it now that we've been brought together at last. But it's an extremely limited edition. It sold out of every store in the area within fifteen minutes; I called to check, just to torture myself with the could have beens. How the hell did you get your hands on one?”

Derek shifted uncomfortably, aware of all eyes in the room turning to him. “I got it from a guy I know - a buddy of mine from school. I figured they'd have a decent amount in stock at the store where he works, so I texted him while I was running the battery test to ask if he could set one aside.”

“That was before you even knew who I was!”

“Well, I meant to give you his information so you could pick it up. But your car turned out to be worst than I’d expected, and you invited me for Christmas, then, so - it seemed like a good idea,” he finished lamely.

“No, it was the best idea anyone’s ever had. And I'm pissed off I'm such an ungrateful jackass.” He carefully set the game down so he could throw his arms around Derek. It was an awkward position, with the two of them on the couch, in front of his best friend and father, but Derek did his best to hug back without looking blissed out about it.

“You invited me to your home,” he reminded him, his lips in Stiles’s hair, brushing against the curve of his ear as he spoke. “That's hardly a gift from a jackass.”

Stiles tightened his arms in response, then untangled himself and went back to examining every inch of the box, his excitement building to worrying levels. Before he could say anything, his dad shook his head.

“We are _not_ watching you play for the rest of the day,” he said, in the tone of a longsuffering father who'd said the exact same thing to his child for twenty Christmases.

Stiles sighed and placed it with his other gifts, as gently as though it was a living creature, and went to retrieve another box. “I guess that makes it time for your terrible present, then. Seriously, don't get your expectations up; this was not an easy year.”

“I know,” he said, resigned but amused. “I saw what you gave Scott.”

“There wasn't a lot on the bus route and in my price range, okay? I should've partnered up with Derek on this one and taken credit for his, since this jerk decided to outshine me. Next year, though? I’m going to beat him, hands down, on every gift. You watch and see.”

The conversation ebbed and flowed, carrying them through another meal and an evening spent alternating turns with Stiles’s new game, despite earlier protestations. It was unquestionably the best Christmas Derek had been a part of in years, even before his family had narrowed down to him and an uncle he didn't particularly like. Who hadn’t even bothered to text him a “Merry Christmas.” He checked his phone a few times, in case he’d missed anything, but there were only the usual texts from Erica, Boyd, and Isaac, who’d sent him a thumbs up when he let him know about the game’s reception.

He sent Peter a message late in the evening, as everyone began to rustle around for their things as preparation for parting ways. A simple holiday greeting wouldn’t hurt either of them, and it wasn’t fair, he supposed, that he’d been holding onto the hurt of living with someone who hadn’t responded well to two kids being dropped on his doorstep. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t wanted kids, or that he hadn’t known what to do to make his sister’s orphaned children welcome. If Derek shut his eyes and thought back to the earlier years, when everything hadn’t been ruined yet, he could still tap into that old fondness for their fun uncle who blew in and out of the house with expensive gifts and stories about his travels. He wasn’t equipped to be a dad, that was all.

Giving up on receiving an immediate response - Peter was probably overseas, for work or fun or a combination of both - he tried to close out of his messages but accidentally swiped into his old thread with Laura. His breath caught, hitching sharply, the pain as fresh as it’d been the day he’d gotten the phone call from the hospital.

 _It’ll be okay_ , she’d texted him, the last in a chain of messages they’d been exchanging that day, before she’d told him she had to head out and that she’d talk to him later. He’d been struggling with a difficult assignment and a professor he swore hated his guts for no reason, and she’d alternated between coming up with creative insults that he had no intention of passing on, and offering more constructive advice. She’d promised to help him more the next day.

The phone call had come when he and Boyd had given up on their studies for the night. They’d been tossing a ball back and forth across the room, talking about a pretty blonde who’d asked Boyd out after a class he hadn’t realized they’d shared. He always sat in the first few rows, while she hung out at the back, usually booking it out of the room before he’d finished gathering together his things. He wasn’t sure it was meant to be a date, actually; he’d thought she was wheedling her way into getting a copy of his notes, but Derek was certain she was interested.

“Do you need to get that?” Boyd had asked when Derek’s phone had jogged impatiently across his desk, the screen lighting up with an incoming call.

“Nah, probably just my sister,” he’d said, snapping the ball back and laughing when Boyd had to throw himself after it to keep it from bouncing off the wall. “It can wait.”

Stiles waved goodbye to Scott and Melissa and hugged them both once more for the road. The Sheriff helped clear dishes for a bit before yawning and heading up to his room, claiming he was bushed.

“Saddling us with the chores, more like it. You dry, I'll wash?”

“Sure,” Derek said, not minding in the slightest. He'd be content doing the dishes entirely on his own, as long as Stiles stuck around the kitchen and talked to him.

“You’ve got it bad, little brother,” his sister’s shadow laughed, lingering in the doorway, a flicker at the edges of his vision. Before her voice drifted out of his head and into the night, she added, with that softness he knew the real Laura would’ve had if he’d been able to call her up to tell her how the week had gone, “I’m glad, you know. It’s okay to be happy.”

He took a plate from Stiles, wiped it dry, then handed it back, pointing out the caked-on food he hadn’t actually washed clean. Stiles splashed it back into the water and grabbed his towel away. “If you’re so picky, switch places. You can get your hands all pruney.”

“It’s not _picky_ ; it’s doing it the right way,” he argued patiently, but rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hands into the suds, searching for the sponge. With the bright lights in the kitchen and spilling through from the connected living room, he couldn’t see much out of the window over the sink, other than vague shapes of trees and the neighboring house. His gaze lifted to it, though, each time he passed a dish to Stiles, who was telling him a story about the year that he’d tried to give Scott a lizard for Christmas. He could see Stiles’s face reflected in the glass, the multicolored lights from the tree splashed across his skin. He could see his, too - the smile he’d stopped trying to hide as Stiles mimicked the expressions of the adults when they’d realized Scott’s present had escaped.

“It was the worst Christmas,” he finished mournfully. “I caught him another one - there are always a bunch of lizards out in the yard, although they’re harder to find this time of year - but it wasn’t the same.”

“What a shame. You’re ordinarily so good at presents.”

“Hey, I’m the best,” Stiles said. Derek shut off the faucet and pulled the drain, letting the soapy water gurgle down the pipes. He wiped his hands on the towel Stiles handed him, his cheeks still tingling from the day’s happiness.

“If you say so,” he said, but when he looked up, expecting another light-hearted quip, Stiles was closer than he’d realized, his eyes tracing over Derek’s face.

“I have one left in the bag, if you’re interested. Saving it for the right moment and all that.” His gaze flicked to Derek’s mouth, and they both swallowed.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “I - yeah, I wouldn’t mind that.”

“How encouraging,” Stiles said, but he lifted a hand to Derek’s jaw, searched his eyes once more, nodded to himself, and tilted his head to meet Derek’s lips with his. His mouth was warm and firm, tasting faintly of the spices from the last piece of pumpkin pie he’d split with Derek.

“On second thought,” he murmured after a while, their mouths only a breath apart, “I’m not sure this counts. I brought myself a boyfriend home for Christmas, which means it’s my present, right, not yours? I’ll try again, next year.”

“We can share,” he assured him. “I don’t mind. It’s wrapped up pretty nicely.”

Stiles laughed against his mouth, which was an odd sensation he hadn’t encountered before. It sent the tingling coursing from his cheeks all the way down to his toes. “That was terrible. Who knew Hot Battery Dude would be this bad at pickup lines. Imagine if you’d used that one on me when you showed up in those horrifically attractive yellow pants?”

“Wasn’t trying to pick you up. Was trying to help.”

“You sure did,” he said, taking his hand and winking at him. “I’ll see your bad pickup line and raise you one. Interested in helping me upstairs?”

He groaned. “After that, surprisingly...yes.”

***

They didn’t end up having sex. Derek got weird about it once they were actually near his bed - eager to kiss and touch as much as they both wanted and not seeming to mind the loss of his shirt, but tensing when Stiles strayed near his belt or the button on his jeans - and he backed off, figuring they had plenty of time to sort out the details. He stroked his hands down Derek’s broad shoulders instead and lingered on the soft whorls of his chest hair. “This okay?” he asked, ducking down to kiss the hollow of Derek’s throat.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “It’s good. It’s all good. I - sorry, it’s been a while.”

“I’m not in a rush,” he soothed, testing how the bristly hairs on Derek’s chin felt against the flat of his tongue. Weird, he thought. But interesting. He’d never kissed someone with a beard before, or that many people at all, really. It’d be something to talk about, later, when they got around to discussing levels of experience and whatever dodgy bits from Derek’s past made him hesitate now. “We can do anything you want. Or nothing. I’m just glad you’re here with me.”

“Me too.” Derek was extraordinary up close, and Stiles drank in the view, not quite believing he had the option - to press his lips against Derek’s perfect mouth, or to watch the way his dark eyelashes fluttered, framing those impossible to describe eyes.

“They have at least ten shades,” he said, moving closer to better distinguish the progression from green to grey. His nose bumped against Derek’s, and he huffed in annoyance.

“Pretty sure that’s as close as we can get without merging into a single person,” Derek said, muffled against his skin. He was smiling, Stiles thought, and he drew back to check.

“You’re beautiful,” he informed him, in case he wasn’t fully aware of how offensively gorgeous his features were.

“So are you,” he replied readily, “and I could tell that from a distance, without smashing my face against yours.”

“Funny, too. I lucked out with the whole package.”

“I try.” Stiles touched the dents from his dimples, and Derek laughed, jostling him away. “Are you tired? Because honestly, it’s been a long day, with a lot of socializing. I could sleep.”

“In here, you mean?”

“If you want.”

“I do. Very much.”

“Then yeah, I’m okay with that.”

It took a few tries to find an arrangement that worked for both of them; Stiles had assumed, for whatever reason, that Derek would want to be the big spoon, but he didn’t relax completely until they swapped positions. Once Stiles had tucked his knees comfortably behind Derek’s and wrapped his arms around his chest, it didn’t take long for his breathing to even out. Stiles pressed a kiss against his hairline, and Derek sighed in his sleep, his fingers loosening around Stiles’s wrist.

A lifetime ago, or so it seemed, they’d shared this same room. Less had changed than Stiles would have wanted to admit: the walls held some of the same posters, action figures were frozen into familiar poses on his bookshelves, and the sheets were a set that’d been around for longer than he’d known his mom. Pieces of the two of them were the same, too. He could see that Derek in this one, still quiet and sad and serious, at least on the surface, with a bright sense of humor he’d occasionally let himself release, when he thought no one was judging him for it.

On the second night the Hales had spent in their house, Stiles had woken to the sound of subdued sniffling. It’d taken some knuckling of his eyes to place it and to stumble out of bed and over to Derek’s sleeping bag. The noises had stopped - Derek trying to hold it back, pretending he wasn’t upset about his family or frightened by the fire - but Stiles was too young and tired to bother pretending he hadn’t heard. He’d crawled in next to Derek, pushing against his limbs until he made space for him, then wrapping his skinny arms around him.

He’d dropped his head next to Derek’s and blinked sleepily at the tears caught in his dark eyelashes. “It’ll be okay,” he’d mumbled, yawning halfway through. “You’re okay here.”

“It hurts,” Derek had said, after a pause when he’d probably been considering whether or not to answer.

“I know. It feels awful. My mom died, last year. My dad says - he says it gets better. I don’t know if it will.”

“So how do you do it?” he’d asked, his voice heavy with pain.

“I’ve still got my dad. And he’s got me. We need each other, so that makes it - harder, but easier, too.”

“I have Laura,” Derek had said.

Stiles had nodded, his eyes drooping shut. “Me too, though. It’s better when you’re not alone.”

In the morning, he’d woken in his own bed, Derek asleep in his bundle on the floor, his hair dark against his pillow. He’d thought, for years, that he’d dreamed that middle of the night exchange. Maybe he had; he’d ask Derek in the morning. They had a lot to talk about, but it didn’t all have to be tonight, on Christmas.

“You’re not alone,” he said, into Derek’s hair. And neither was he.

**Author's Note:**

> The canonical character deaths are Derek's family, plus Laura, and Stiles's mom. Derek was 15 at the time of the fire, and it's implied that Kate Argent was responsible for both the arson and some sexual trauma. None of it's explicitly addressed in this fic, but Derek has some understandable hesitations around intimacy and trust, and Stiles is respectful of the boundaries he sets.
> 
> The fic title was taken from a song that cropped up on my playlist as I was writing. The lyrics seemed too fitting to not include:
> 
> _Should I know you_  
>  _A stranger though you seem_  
>  _You feel like home_
> 
> I've got a [fandom/fic recs blog](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com/) and a [regular blog](http://paintedlandscape.tumblr.com/), and you're welcome to find me on either/both. I tend to ramble more on [twitter](https://twitter.com/paintedrecs). Comments and kudos keep me motivated and genuinely brighten my day.


End file.
